Too Cool to Dye?

Even though I live in Hawaii, it's not always warm at my house and that was the case yesterday. It might have been in the low 70s inside but maybe not. So it was a good time to try a different (for me) technique. Here's what I did:

I soaked the fabric in hot, hot salt water for a few minutes before scrunching it in a container. One yard per container.
I used squirt bottles to apply the dye and turned it over once to make sure I had good coverage.
The dye was mixed at one Tbsp of dye powder to one cup of water.
I waited for 10-15 minutes and then poured soda ash over the fabric, pressing slightly to make sure it reached all the fabric.
I left the containers alone for 12 hours and then I microwaved them for 2 minutes on high.
I washed out with cool water, hot water and then hot water and synthropol.

The colors were more intense than I usually get in these temps but not as intense as when I lived in Waikoloa where it was always between 80-90 degrees in my dye area. When dyeing in Waikoloa I used no salt and only room temperature water. The rest of the process was the same.

So I need to do some more experimenting to see if I can improve on the intensity of the color in these temperatures.

Here are some of the results from yesterday:

Stay tuned for the results of overdyeing a piece I had already treated with Retayne.

Kathy

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